Thursday

Recently, I have found myself thinking a lot about the best, and the worst, custodyarrangements for very young children. When I say very young children, I am thinking about infants (aged newborn to roughly 18 months) as well as toddlers (aged 18 months to about 3 years).

Below, I will offer some of my own thoughts about this very important, and it seems, increasingly controversial topic. But at the outset, I want to invite readers to share their experiences about what is working for you, and what isn't; about what custody arrangements you have chosen for your own very young children, and about what schedules were imposed on you by a court, an ex, whoever.

I am looking for your input, because I have been hearing more and more from parents who are very unhappy about parenting plans for their very young children. Mostly, I have been getting emails or telephone calls from parents, usually mothers, who are scared to death that their very young child has been divided - and is being damaged both now and in the long term. I also have heard from other parents, mainly fathers, who are afraid they are being shut out of their very young children's lives - now and for the long run.

There are a lot of complicated psychological, practical, and legal issues involved in custody arrangements for very young children. I will not delve very deeply into the details in this post, or I will end up going on for too long. Look for future posts with more specifics.

Psychologically, the quality of attachment relationships is the main concern about the well-being of very young children. Children form a close bond with those who care for them, usually their parents, in the first year of life (and beyond). The development of attachments is a biologically driven process, one that is observed in other primates, other mammals, and precocial birds. (Think of ducklings swimming in line behind their mother on a pond in springtime.)

Very young children can and do form multiple attachments, including to mothers, fathers, grandparents, nannies, and so on. Still, children have a primary attachment figure, the person they prefer to offer them comfort in times of anxiety or pain. (A daycare worker can comfort a distraught toddler when no parent is available, but given a choice, an 18 month old will run to Mommy - or Daddy.)

Now we are getting to the nub of one controversy. A great deal of psychological research shows that the quality of the primary attachment - particularly whether it is secure or insecure - in very young children predicts the development of various psychological and social problems in the future. (Importantly, attachment is a central concern not only for custody but for other issues like day care, families where both parents are employed for long hours, hospitalized premature infants, incarcerated parents, and a variety of other issues involving parents' relationships with their very young children.)

So in disputed custody cases, parents, lawyers, and various experts can and do end up debating whether a very young child's primary attachment (usually to the mother) is all-important and pretty fragile - or whether their secondary attachment (usually to the father) is just as important and perhaps is being undermined, maybe deliberately, by a doting or vindictive primary attachment figure. Specific questions and debates range from whether babies, or toddlers, should have overnights with their secondary attachment figures to whether parents should share joint physical custody of infants, alternating back and forth every day if necessary.

I won't go into the details now, but I clearly come down on the side of the importance of the primary attachment figure to children's emotional well-being. Why? I am convinced by the weight of the scientific evidence.

Yet, both for practical and scientific reasons, I believe that it is very important for children to form attachment relationships with their "other" parent too.

If parents can work together, there are ways to achieve both goals. The secondary attachment figure can have frequent but relatively brief contacts with their baby during the first year of life, but the contacts can increasingly become longer and less frequent as babies become toddlers, preschoolers, and so on. (I've written about these developmental ideas at length in The Truth about Children and Divorce, and will expand upon them here in another post.)

But a lot of separated parents of very young children do not get along very well. And many separated parents are not encouraged (repeatedly and forcefully) by professionals about the overriding importance of working together for their children's sake, no matter how hurt or angry the parents might justifiably be. And the legal system encourages parents of very young children to fight, because they will give away their "rights" if they compromise now. (More on this later too.)

As a result of all of this, legal, scientific, and, most importantly, family controversies erupt. This is a huge, and I think, growing problem. And I haven't even touched on other issues, for example, the practical problems involved in shifting babies between households, or "expert opinion" that may be anything but.

What I am looking for are readers' opinions and especially your experiences. (I know the motivation is greater to write about bad experiences; please share good ones too.) Family change and an interventionist legal system have put us into uncharted waters. I am looking for some help in mapping them.

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Stop Court-Ordered Parental Alienation

February 23rd

Obnoxious ‘Renegade’ Justice ~ Family Courts

The abuses of parents and children by Family Courts, social workers, and family law attorneys have harmed parents and children for far too long. We intend to end that abuse

Family court is designed by its makers to be probably the most dangerous life event parents and children can endure. It enables and profits from every inhumane instinct known to man—greed, hate, resentment, fear—resulting in abundant cash flow for the divorce industry and a fallout of parent and children’s misery.

And behind the curtain of this machine of misery we’ve uncovered its cause—the multi-billion dollar divorce industry, populated by judges, attorneys, and a machinery of tax-dollar fed “judicial administrators,” social workers that George Orwell would marvel at.

We’ve been delivering that message kindly for years now, yet the tide keeps rising on families in crisis. We’ve appealed to the county courts, state and local politicians, state judicial oversight bodies, United States Representatives, and just plain old human dignity, but the harassment and abuse of parents and children has only increased. A resort to federal court intervention in the widespread criminal collusion in state government was the next logical step.

It’s time to recognize Family Court for what it is—a corporate crime ring raiding parents and children of financial and psychological well-being, and devouring our children’s futures. And its not just divorce lawyers—its judges, “judicial administrators,” psychologists, cops and prosecutors—people we should be able to trust—in a modern day criminal cabal using county courtrooms and sheriff’s deputies as the machinery of organized crime.

Since state officials’ hands are too deep into the cookie jar to stop their own abuse, we’re seeking the assistance of federal oversight.

The present-day suffering of so many parents and children has and is being wrought within a larger system characterized by a widespread institutional failure of—indeed contempt for—the rule of law.

Family courts, the legal community, professional institutions such as the state bar, psychology boards, and criminal justice institutions have in the recent decade gradually combined to cultivate a joint enterprise forum in which widespread “family practice” exceptions to the rule of law are not only tolerated, but increasingly encouraged. Professional behavior that would only a few years ago be recognized as unethical, illegal, or otherwise intolerable by American legal, psychological, law enforcement, or social work professionals has increasingly achieved acceptance—indeed applause—from institutional interests which benefit from a joint enterprise enforcing the unwritten law of “who you know is more important than what you know.

In this lawless behavior’s most crass infestation, Family Court Judges are regularly heard to announce, in open court, “I am the law” and proceed to act accordingly with impunity, indifference, and without shame.

The effect on parents and children seeking social support within this coalescing “family law” forum has not been as advertised by courts and professionals—a new healing—but instead a new affliction: an ‘imposed disability’ of de rigueur deprivation of fundamental rights in the name of ‘therapeutic jurisprudence’ funded by converting college funds into a bloated ministry of the Bar Associations leaving families and their children with mere crumbs of their own success.

Many family court judges regularly administer such obnoxious ‘renegade’ justice every day, in open defiance of the rule of law. ‘Sober as a judge’ these days has a whole new meaning.

We need reform toward a more humane family dispute resolution solution

Many of our members are mothers, fathers, and children who have withstood abundant hardship resulting from the current practices of what is generally described as the “Family Law Community.”

These injuries and insults include fraudulent, inefficient, harmful, and even dangerous services; an institutionalized culture of indifference to “clearly-established” liberties; insults to the autonomy and dignity of parents and children; extortion, robbery, abuse, and more, delivered at the hands of eager operators within the divorce industry. ~~ CPRW Vid1 - 2016

World4Justice2016

It’s just not possible that intelligent lawyers like judges don’t understand exactly what goes on in their courtrooms, yet they allow it to continue.

This judicial collusion is far more serious crime than even the fraud of divorce attorneys themselves.

We need reform toward a more humane family dispute resolution solution. They’ve treated us as enemies of the state. When we thought we’d be welcomed, or at least heard, we’ve instead become targets of prosecution and terrorist threats. They've assaulted us, harassed our members including threatening “gun cock” and death threat late night phone calls, attacked our businesses, professional licenses, and threatened to jail and extort us with further crime.

It’s outrageous that our own government allows this to happen, and we’re asking the federal court to protect our members as we pursue the civil and criminal charges against the courts. A complete set of filings and exhibits is available from CCFC’s Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/ccfconline ~~ Grandparents and Grandkids World4Justice2016 ~ GR Vid2 -- www.facebook.com/Grandparents4Justice

Jury trials have been unlawfully eliminated as an option in family court by unelected adminstrators, leaving judges to do whatever they want and control the cases completely. The checks and balances of the judicial system have been removed and profit motives win by the gravity of money over decades.

Freedom of speech in the United States

“Will of the people the only legitimate foundation of any government, protect its free expression, our first object.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

"No man is good enough to govern another man without the other's consent."

“There are subtle ways and overt ways of alienating a child from a parent, but either way it’s evil”

Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.

Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.

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